India’s ‘Google Tax’ Move Is a Sneak Peek Into Tariff Quagmire
Canceling the levy ahead of Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ shows New Delhi’s desperation to avoid serious punishment.
India is making sacrifices to avoid the wrath of the Trump administration.
Photographer: NurPhoto/Getty Images
The world is living in fear of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day.” In India, which keeps getting pilloried by the US president as an exemplar of bad behavior in trade, the reciprocal tariff announcement of April 2 has acquired a fervent overtone. In preparation, New Delhi is offering one sacrifice after another, hoping that the angry god of the White House will let it go with nothing more serious than a slap on the wrist.
The latest peace offering is the decision to do away with a 6% tax on ads that local businesses place with foreign search engines, social media and e-commerce firms. This is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way of telling Trump, “Look, we aren’t China. Not only do we allow Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. to hog our digital-advertising pie, if you want us to make it cheaper for them to operate, that’s fine, too.”